Developer's Journal 4:46 (Patreon)

Hey everybody.

Well, let's see: I am still sick, my elderly father is more sick, and Los Angeles is burning. Regular job is predictably demanding and getting help with the writing turned out to be a bust. Great start to the new year!

Nevertheless, I having been working on the game everyday. Progress is slow but assured. One of my big struggles was one particular scene (a very important, culminating scene) that I knew had a problem with the dialogue. It was a subtle problem that probably 95% of players wouldn't even notice, but it was a real and meaningful problem for anyone who's paying close attention to the MC's character progression. I was very stressed about working on the scene because I just couldn't figure out how to fix it. Finally, after realizing I was getting no writing help, I sat down, played through what I had, and changed one line. One line was all it took, and suddenly I loved the scene. Suddenly I didn't feel lost when posing the scene's renders. But it had taken me weeks to come up with this one small fix.

I know I'm not the fastest developer. Sometimes I'm actually really slow, but I am accomplishing something through my deliberation. I acknowledge being self-conscious when I compare myself to other developers who are much faster than I am. Or frankly, at this point, to being slower than myself when I am fast. But the fact is that sometimes I just have to sit with a scene and give it time to simmer. I try to write scenes that are complex and a part of larger plot and character arcs, as well as reflective of the game's themes, but that takes its own form of work, and sometimes it takes time. It just gets that much harder when I'm dealing with a lot of other things in my life, including bad health.

I am getting closer to the end. It will get here. Thank you for your patience and support.

--Monk